Koreas united on Winter Olympics

20 January, 2018

North Korea issued a notice delivered under the name of Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country (CPRC) to the South Korean Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon at around 2200 KST via the Panmunjom communications channel.

In a statement, Duckworth said she comes back to Washington with "a warning about how deadly and destructive renewed hostilities with North Korea would be". The two Koreas will also discuss the results of Wednesday's talks at an International Olympic Committee meeting on Saturday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

So far, the plan is for the two teams to march together in the opening ceremonies-under a white flag with a blue map of the entire Korean peninsula.

Ahead of the Olympics, the Koreas will hold a joint cultural event at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain and have non-Olympic skiers train together at the North's Masik ski resort, according to the statement.

The collaboration between the two Koreas is happening amid growing global pressure on North Korea to abandon its accelerating programme of testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them.

The rival Koreas earlier this week agreed that the 140-member Samjiyon art troupe, which will include singers, dancers and orchestra members, will perform twice in South Korea during the games in a sign of warming ties between the countries. Last year, North Korea carried out its sixth and biggest nuclear test explosion and test-fired three intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump traded threats of war and crude insults against each other. It boycotted the last Olympics held in South Korea, in the summer of 1988, though it has attended a few global sporting events hosted by its neighbor in recent years.

Lost in the many USA media freak-outs over this tweet, but probably looming large in the strictly controlled imaginations of Rodong Sinmun editors, is that Trump was specifically mocking a comment from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Russian Federation also sent a reduced team to the Rio de Janeiro summer Games of 2016 after its track and field team as well as weightlifting team, among others, were banned for doping.

The North notified the South that it will suspend the seven-member team's trip slated for Saturday to check the venues for its proposed art performances in Seoul and Gangnueng, 260 kilometers east of the capital, the ministry said.

Seoul hopes to build upon recent breakthrough bilateral discussions with Pyongyang to resolve the nuclear crisis, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at a ministerial meeting in Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday.

The need for an iron-clad alliance will ensure the latest sanctions against North Korea "will be made to work" and those sanctions are beginning to be felt, she said.

The North also issued a threat to back out of the Games after the South's president, Moon Jae-in, credited President Trump with creating an environment through global pressure that made the talks possible.

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